


A Case of Jameson

by luthorienne



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Human Trafficking, there's a mild Irish joke in here told by an Irishwoman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 08:16:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2725349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luthorienne/pseuds/luthorienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Clint finds the perfect Christmas gift for a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Case of Jameson

“You accepted a mission _now?_ ”

Clint Barton blinked at Phil’s tone in surprise as the other man took a chair across the table from him. Around them, the cafeteria buzz continued unabated. 

“No time like the present?” he ventured. What the hell? Phil knew as well as he did that they had to move quickly on this human factory, before it got packed up and moved on – again. This was SHIELD’s third attempt at shutting them down, and Nick had told the mission briefing in no uncertain terms that he didn’t plan to be a day late and a dollar short again. Phil shook his head doubtfully.

“You know the holiday party is in three days.”

Clint frowned.

“Seriously? Phil, _seriously?_ ”

“Look, I know you think it’s trivial –“

“It’s not that,” Clint interrupted. “It’s just – you know what I do for a living, right? I’m not a festive kinda guy.”

“—but you’re an Avenger now, and it’s important for you to be part of the social life of the organization. It contributes to morale. Anyway, Marcy’s been working her butt off on this party, and she’ll be crushed if you don’t show.”

Clint fidgeted with his napkin, not meeting Phil’s reproachful gaze.

“So, there’s this thing,” he said finally. “Everybody does the whole gift exchange thing, and I’m just shit at that, Phil, it just makes me uncomfortable. And whenever I give somebody something, I can see them checking it over carefully for bloodstains.”  


“That’s not true,” Phil replied automatically. Then, as Clint looked up at him, he blinked. “Well, there’s a very simple solution,” he said finally. “The problem is, you’re exchanging gifts with people who don’t know you very well. Who did you exchange with last year?”

“Rosemary in Accounting.” Clint replied. “I gave her an engraved letter opener.”

“Well, you see? I remember that. She liked it very much.”

“Yeah, she liked it so much, she stabbed her supervisor in the chest with it.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that,” Phil said, frowning. “By the way, I got a memo from Legal that they got the charges dropped. I hear he’s coming back in the New Year.” He was silent for a moment, then shook his head to clear it. “Anyway, who did you get in the gift exchange this year?”

“Marcy.”

Phil made a there-you-go gesture.

“Well, that’s easy, then. You know Marcy. You’ll think of a great gift. She loves anything Irish, right? So, just – get through the mission, and make sure you’re back here in time for the party. Marcy’s under a lot of stress, you know – well, all of HR is, but especially Marcy – what with Rosemary in therapy and trying to figure out how to account for seventy years of back pay for Steve, and you know Marcy and her husband are trying to have a baby, too, and that’s not going so hot, I hear. She’s been trying to get this party organized for months, now, and you wouldn’t believe the b.s. she’s been running into. So get her something nice, something Irish.”

“You know this mission is in Bangkok, right?”

“Barton, I don’t give a damn if it’s on Mars. Get her some Irish linen napkins, or some Irish music, or – or, hell, I don’t know, get her an Irish setter. Get her some nice Irish whiskey if all else fails. Just – don’t give her anything sharp.”

“…oo-kay…”

“And Barton?” Phil added as he rose.

“Yeah?”

“You _will_ be back in time for that party.” 

Clint sighed. There was no arguing with Phil when he used that tone.

“Copy that, sir.”

 

Fifty-two hours later, Clint was strolling happily through the remains of a human trafficking centre, placing wads of C4 here and there as he went, spooling out wire and humming “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer,” under his breath. The last victims had been dead long before he got there, shot by their captors once they’d fulfilled their purpose, but the facility had still been surprisingly intact, and he’d had the satisfaction of taking down the mop-up squad of goons before they could wipe the hard drives. Clint himself was almost unscathed, having suffered only a bullet crease along his ribs that was hardly even bleeding anymore. He’d pinned the ringleader to the paneled wall of his office with an arrow through the heart, and had sat down at the man’s desk, booted up his computer and copied the data onto a flash drive with no trouble at all. It almost made him believe in Christmas wishes. And while he’d been waiting for the download, he’d poked around the stupidly-opulent office and found the perfect gift for Marcy under the man’s wet bar (seriously – who had a wet bar and a paneled office in a damn third-world human factory, for Chrissake?) – which was fortunate, because it was going to take him the best part of 24 hours on military transport to get back to HQ, and there’d be no time for shopping at any point in the process. So now, as he placed the last wad of C4 and checked the connections, he hitched a cardboard box containing six full, untapped bottles of Jameson Irish Whiskey a little higher under his arm. 

Clint was a scotch drinker himself – not that he drank much anyway; look how _that_ had worked out for the old man – but Marcy was all about the Irish, and he figured there wasn’t much that could go wrong with this gift, at least. They’d bickered good-naturedly about the relative merits of scotch and Irish whiskey for years, though she wasn’t that much of a drinker, either – in fact, she’d told him once the reason God made whiskey was so the Irish wouldn’t rule the world, which had made him snort coffee through his nose and had reduced Tasha to near-hysterics. But he knew she indulged in the occasional glass of Irish whiskey, and he knew Jameson was the brand she liked. 

He liked Marcy – she hadn’t ever been scared of him, even after the Incident with Loki, and she worked hard to make sure SHIELD’s human resources were actually treated like humans. He’d never told Phil, but Marcy was one of the reasons he’d stayed with SHIELD after Phil had recruited him, all those years ago – she’d just been a kid then, but even back then, she’d treated him with respect and good humour, and even when she’d realized the reason he hadn’t filled in all the forms was because he couldn’t read all the words, she hadn’t made him feel like a dummy, she’d just helped him with the ones he didn’t know, and she’d quietly helped him improve his reading skills until he could read as well as anybody. After Loki, she’d made a point of seeking him out and sitting with him in the cafeteria so he wouldn’t be a pariah. Sometimes, before Phil came back, when he was feeling overwhelmed by the furious or fearful stares of people he’d hurt under Loki’s influence, he’d gone into Marcy’s office just to hide for awhile, sitting under her picture of the Rock of Cashel, where Brian Boru had been crowned High King of Ireland in 1002, and drinking tea from a Belleek mug as he filled out mission reports and made little bows and arrows from her paperclips and rubber bands.

Clint interrupted his musing to administer a brisk kill-shot to the head of a goon who was stirring and trying to crawl away in the corner. Phil said a lot of people had given Marcy a hard time about organizing the holiday party this year. He hoped that wasn’t because she’d supported him. The guy who’d run this human trafficking operation was an evil fuck, but Clint was glad he’d at least provided the means to make sure Marcy got a really good present this Christmas.

He paused by the door of the last twelve-bed dormitory, turning to make one last scan of the room before he set the timer and left – and then he heard it. A scuffling, scraping, snuffling sound, coming from the nursing station in the next room. _Rats_ , he told himself firmly, but then he sighed. Even rats shouldn’t get blown up this close to Christmas. They couldn’t help being horrible. He had to look. What if somebody had left a dog in here, or a cat, or something?

It was coming from the overturned wreckage of a desk, the drawers wrenched out and shattered. He picked up the smashed remains of a drawer and sat back on his heels, closing his eyes in exasperation.

“Awww, _mission,_ ” he said.

 

The holiday party had gone surprisingly well, Phil thought, looking around the lounge at the big Christmas tree and the shreds of wrapping paper and ribbons all over the room. The buffet table was now pretty well denuded, and everyone seemed relaxed and happy, despite a few little incidents, like Maria Hill brandishing her fourth tequila sunrise and explaining loudly to Fury exactly why all the baby agents thought he was an asshole. Marcy was sitting now on the leather sofa opposite the door, squashed between Bruce Banner and Jasper Sitwell, nursing a drink that was probably mostly melted ice by now and talking earnestly with Bruce about the bureaucratic complexity of trying to adopt a child from a third-world country, which led Phil to assume she and her husband had stopped trying the fertility treatments. Tony had been a part of that conversation for awhile, but he’d crossed the room to stand at Phil’s shoulder. Somewhat to Phil’s surprise, Tony’d been one of the quieter party guests.

“Nice lady,” he said now, nodding at Marcy. “Looks like she’d be a good mom.”

Phil nodded his agreement. “There’s a lot of hoops to jump through,” he said. “Paperwork, too. It takes a long time.” Tony snorted.

“All it takes is a couple coats of money, Agent,” he replied, making a painting-the-wall gesture with his free hand. “She’s good to Legolas, yeah? He’s talked about her.”

Phil smiled. 

“She’s good to most people,” he replied, “but yes, she’s made a special effort for Clint. Especially since Loki.”

Tony nodded thoughtfully and moved away toward the bar. Phil watched him go, shaking his head. Every so often, Stark’s carefully-cultivated asshole persona cracked. It was disconcerting to see the human being shining through.

Clint hadn’t turned up after all, but Marcy had taken it surprisingly well, and had tucked Clint’s gift – a warm purple toque and mittens she’d knitted herself – into the sleeve of Phil’s overcoat so he could make sure Clint received it, whenever he got back. She looked exhausted but satisfied, and Phil crouched near her and smiled.

“I know he would have come if he could,” he said. “Sometimes these things just can’t be foreseen.”

“I know,” she smiled. “I just hope he’s okay. I know it’s silly, I just think it’s important for him to know how much we all care about him – especially after everything that’s happened. He needs to know we realize – oh!”

Phil looked around to see what Marcy was waving at and saw Clint, looking a little diffident, standing in the doorway with a somewhat battered cardboard liquor box under his arm. He had clearly washed his hands and face, but he needed a shave, his uniform was bloody and dirty, and as he came closer, Phil noted that he smelled strongly of C4, sweat and burning. 

“Hey, Marcy,” he said, a little shyly. “Sorry I’m late. Looks like it was a good party.” He held out the box. “I hope you don’t mind I couldn’t wrap it.”

“Of course not, Clint, that doesn’t matter, I’m just –“ she lifted the cardboard flaps and broke off, staring down in speechless amazement into the box. Clint fidgeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Phil stepped closer and looked into the box.

Lying in a nest of mostly-clean black t-shirts and cargo pants was a very new baby, wearing an oversized field dressing as a diaper, and playing with a pair of balled-up leather shooting gloves. A full head of absolutely straight black hair fringed a chubby face featuring a pair of unfocused brown eyes that Phil was pretty sure were also destined to be black. There was a tiny, scabbed-over cut and a bruise on one temple, and as Phil watched, the baby blew a small bubble through rosebud lips, waving impossibly tiny feet in the air. Phil looked at Marcy, whose eyes were shining, and then at Clint, who looked hopeful, and perhaps a little worried.

“I call him Jameson,” he offered. Marcy picked the baby out of the nest of t-shirts with shaking hands and cradled him close, her glass fallen and forgotten on the floor. Clint knelt and took the box, setting it aside. 

“Merry Christmas, Marcy,” he said. She smiled shakily at him over the child’s head, choking back a broken sob, tears spilling down her face, and reached out a trembling hand to caress his cheek.

“Merry Christmas, Clint,” she said.


End file.
